


Talk With Touch

by mourntheantagonist



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blind Character, Cancer, Coming Out, Deaf Character, F/M, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn, So much angst, Underage Drinking, will add more tags as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:14:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21948640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mourntheantagonist/pseuds/mourntheantagonist
Summary: Richie tries to navigate through life. Navigate through his own trauma and his own demons. He’s desperately searching for something to pull him out of the dark. It’s a lot harder to find when you can’t even see.OrRichie is blind and falling for the new boy at school. But his lack of vision complicates things.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 17
Kudos: 131





	1. Chapter 1

Touch was the most crucial facet of his life and simultaneously his biggest fear. Touch was how he found his way through the world, it was how he saw the world. His eyes had failed him in the department of sight and he was left with just his other four senses to do all of the heavy lifting.

It was a very difficult adjustment, despite his loss of sight being gradual. No amount of time can prepare a fourteen year old boy living in the middle of nowhere with the fact of another undesirable trait to make him stand out. He thought that the coke-bottle glasses were strong enough bait, but now add a cane into the mix? Might as well put a literal target on his back.

Henry Bowers and his gang had a field day with this new information. Someone might think any person with a sliver of morals would feel sympathetic for someone in Richie’s position. Not the Bowers gang. No, instead they saw this as an opportunity to beat down on someone with no ability to fight back. He even provided them with the weapon. Four against one is hard enough as it is, try it with your eyes closed. Sometimes they’d graciously skip the beat down and instead just steal, hide, or break his cane, leaving him to walk the halls like Frankenstein’s monster. Arms outstretched, praying he didn’t run into anything.

Luckily with time things got easier. He had memorized the layout of the school and could navigate his way from class to class by just dragging his hand alongside the lockers on the wall. He was lucky enough to have friends that stuck by him at all times, which lowered the frequency of Bowers related altercations.

In the beginning he only had Stan and Bill, who, due to conflicting class schedules, couldn’t accompany him at all times of the day. Stan and Bill had been friends with Richie since they met in kindergarten. Back when they thought his astigmatism would be his biggest problem. It all started out with just the slight fuzziness that occurred when he tried to read the board from far away. An easy fix that only required a pair of glasses. The ever so dreaded glasses. But they only helped for a short while. Where his vision just got fuzzier and fuzzier, until he couldn’t even read a book without them. It wasn’t until he entered the sixth grade that he started noticing the spots. Tiny little spots scattered around his vision that didn’t go away when he put on his glasses.

They called it melanoma.

_Cancer._

Cancer was familiar. He had learned about it in health class. But it wasn’t something anyone could think would happen to them. It was just the scary disease that your great grandmother on your father's side had. It was just a thing that was there. It wasn’t tangible. It wasn’t real, until it was.

It didn’t quite register in his mind for a while. It wasn’t until he was hooked up to machines and his hair started to leave his head and he felt sick more often than he felt well that it dawned on him what was actually happening to him. All of the emotions had come on at once, causing a full on mental breakdown in the hospital waiting room. He doesn’t remember much of what happened that afternoon. Just the tightness of his mother's embrace and his tears staining her cardigan.

He went undiagnosed for so long that the tumors were so large they couldn’t be treated without completely blinding him. It was only two weeks before his thirteenth birthday that he received the news that they were going to have to remove his left eye. For his thirteenth birthday he got the new Queen album and a glass eye. The album was called ‘The Miracle’. The real miracle would be if he still had his right eye by the time he got into high school.

It was a weird first few weeks back at school after the surgery. He had an aid following him around, training him to understand how to navigate with less than half the vision he had before. All he could really see at this point was blobs of color and he could sense movement. It wasn’t only an adjustment for him, but for his friends as well. Stan and Bill has been so used to the sighted Richie that they’d sometimes forget he was even blind. It would be simple slip ups. Like “Did you see what happened to Patrick’s car?” _Of course not, I’m blind you idiot._ Other times it was “You think Bridget is hot?” _How should I know?_ That didn’t really bother him though. He mostly enjoyed the reaction they had after realizing what they had said. But the latter question did bother him for an entirely different reason.

Richie was very much into dudes, and he was very much aware of this fact. But he still wasn’t proud enough of it to share that fact with anyone. It wasn’t like anyone was lining up at the door waiting for a piece of the blind kid. He wasn’t necessarily ashamed, he was just fearful.

He needed his friends more than he’d like to admit. Stan, Bill, and Ben who had just moved to Derry, were the only thing keeping him alive. Literally. Without them he wouldn’t be able to safely walk the halls and his parents surely would have pulled him out if he came home with just one more broken cane. He even had Mike, who would walk him home from school every day. So the thought of telling them he was gay, and them turning on him, was just not an option for him at this point. He logically knew his friends would accept him, but the small chance that he was wrong outweighed everything else.

Ben and Mike were different from Stan and Bill. The main reason being that Ben and Mike hadn’t know sighted Richie, and they chose to be friends with ‘the blind kid’. Unlike Stan and Bill who were just kind of stuck with the fact. He knew they didn’t care, and that they would’ve loved him no matter what, but still the thought that he was a burden could never leave the back of his mind. They didn’t ask to be friends with the disabled kid. The climate was just different with Ben and Mike. When he was around them, he didn’t have that thought that he had cheated them. They got into the friendship knowing exactly what they signed up for.

Humor was his coping mechanism. He hated feeling like his friends had to tiptoe around him. They stopped asking him to go see movies or go to the arcade to play street fighter, which in theory makes sense, but he hated that he was the reason they couldn’t do the same stuff like they used to. What they didn’t know is that Richie could still do all of those things. He could still hear what was happening in the movies, he just needed someone to explain to him what was happening, which really annoyed the other patrons in the theater (and Richie loved that fact). And he had played so much street fighter in the past, he could still murder Stanley as per usual. But still other activities required more careful consideration. They stopped going to the quarry like they used to, it being dangerous enough with sight. Richie tried to convince them to still go, and he’d just stay out of the water, but they hated leaving Richie out of things, which he really appreciated.

What he hated was the tension. He hated that they were constantly walking on eggshells around him. They wouldn’t talk about _anything_ that in any way shape or form involved sight, or at least they would try to. So that’s where the humor came in. He’d _constantly_ make jokes about his lack of sight, in an attempt to make them more comfortable around the topic. He’d encourage them to joke about it too. They didn’t really take him up on that offer. Although Ben surprised him one day when they were discussing how not-scary the Thriller music video was. When Richie mentioned how he didn’t think it was that scary, Ben clapped back with the perfect;

“What are you, blind?”

He was always joking, even when they were younger. The childish ‘your mom’ jokes he told as a fifth grader carried on with him to eighth, much to the annoyance of his friends. Not only was it most likely him just deflecting and trying to paint the ‘hypersexual straight guy’ image, but it was also used as a way to fill the silence. He hated silence. Especially after going blind. He needed communication in order to survive, or else he felt like everything would stop existing.

Sound and touch were the only things that kept him grounded in the universe. It was the only way he knew how to keep living. And touch wasn’t something Richie thought kindly of.

He hated touching people, and more so he hated people touching _him_. The only person he ever really allowed to touch him were his parents. They were his only constant safe place.

It wasn’t always like that. He used to be very touchy-feely as a kid. But someone had to go and ruin that for him. Someone had to go and _touch him_. In a very wrong and very illegal kind of way. Someone had to go and destroy the carefree feeling of a kid at just the age of eight. Someone had to go and violate him and make him associate physical touch with the sick feeling he felt every time it happened.

Someone just had to go and destroy him.

He only ever told Stan about what happened. Stan was the reason it stopped. And that night when Stan had tried to hug him, he threw up.

And of course touch is something he has to rely on now. Of course the universe had to punish him for something. It all just felt like a cruel joke.  
  


* * *

Richie and his friends, sans Mike because he was homeschooled, sat at their usual lunch table, and did their usual thing. That usual thing being Richie making dumb jokes and the rest chastising him for them. They sounded annoyed, but through some weird intuition, he knew they secretly loved it.

“Hey Rich, you want my pudding? I don’t really want any right now.” Stan asked. He was always offering food to everyone due to the fact his parents always over packed his lunch.

“Do you even have to ask? What flavor?”

Stan slid the cup over to Richie. “Do you even have to ask? Chocolate obviously”.

“Stan the Man you truly are a godsend. I’ll be right back I have to go grab a spoon”.

A couple months ago, someone would have offered to go and get it for him, but as lazy as Richie loved to be, he didn’t like having people do things for him solely because he couldn’t see. After a long and drawn out conversation about it they stopped doing it.

They did however hate it when Richie would try and show off by leaving his cane behind. It’s all fun and games until he trips over a wet floor sign. (Which absolutely happened and it was hilarious). It was rarely if ever a successful trip without his cane, and this time didn’t prove to be any different.

“Watch where you’re going!” It was a voice from behind him, but he swore he only hit the short one in front of him. He hadn’t heard her voice before and figured she might be new considering the comment. So he thought he’d play along.

“Sorry I didn’t see you there.” He said back.

“Well maybe you’d see batter without those sunglasses on,” she clapped back. “Why are you wearing those inside anyway, are you stoned or something?”

“Not stoned, nope, just blind.” He said back, trying with everything he had to hold back his laughter.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry I just thought - I thought you were - I’m sorry I didn’t -“

“Don’t worry about it, I figured you were new so I thought I’d mess around a little bit. Everyone else here pretty much knows.” He couldn’t stop laughing. “Also did I even hit you, I could’ve sworn I only hit the person in front of me.”

“No you didn’t hit me, but you hit my friend, Eddie.”

“And why didn’t he say anything? Do you speak for him? Is he mute or something?”

“Not mute, nope just deaf.”

Ok maybe he deserved that one. “Well, can you tell Eddie that I apologize for bumping into him?”

She signed back to Eddie.

_‘He said he was sorry he bumped into you. He’s blind.’_

“I’m Beverly, we both got transferred here from Waterboro. I’m his best friend/interpreter.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Richie.” He shook her hand, then turned around to shake Eddies. “If you guys are interested, you can come eat lunch with my friends and I. We’re the table in the back corner that’s mostly empty”.

“Well we have to go meet with our teachers but we’ll definitely take you up on that tomorrow.”

“Awesome, well Eds, nice to meet you, and sorry again for bumping into you. Catch you tomorrow.”

“Bye Richie.”

Beverly signed back to Eddie.

_‘He said it was nice to meet you and apologized again. Also he called you Eds and invited us to sit with him and his friends at lunch. Also did you see that I literally waved goodbye? I’m an idiot. Also did I mention he called you Eds?!’_

Eddie smiled.

_‘He called me Eds?’_


	2. Chapter 2

One thing Eddie would admit was that being the new kid was tough. After tight budget cuts by the state, his and Beverly’s school had been closed down and they were all divided and moved to separate middle schools near theirs. Luckily for him he still had Beverly and there were other kids that moved over with them that he knew as well. So not everything about this new environment was foreign to him.

Eddie would also admit that being the deaf kid was even harder. Being coined as ‘the deaf kid’ was far worse than simply being deaf at all if you were to ask him. Deafness was all he had ever known. But that didn’t change the fact that when out in the world with other people, people who didn’t understand, he was alone. 

Eddie had been comfortable in his old school. He had grown up with most of those kids and everyone was aware of his lack of hearing and most had grown accustomed to what it actually meant. People eventually learned that yelling at him wouldn’t make his hearing any better and many students picked up some simple signs and finger spelling. But now that he’s been tossed into another school filled with so many unexpecting people, he had been forced to start over. These people wouldn’t know not to come up from behind him, or know that when they try to speak to him, he isn’t being rude or ignoring them.

He didn’t have a sign or signal that shouted ‘I’m deaf everyone!!’. He just blended in with everyone else. He was profoundly deaf soa hearing aid would never work for him, and cochlear implants were new and expensive, so the visible sign of deafness that a hearing aid or cochlear implant provided was not an option for him. 

The hearing aid would only serve half the battle anyway. Having been profoundly deaf since he was only 2 years old, he never learned to speak properly. He had to learn to speak without ever having heard the words coming out of his mouth. The way he sounded was his biggest insecurity. He didn’t even know how he sounded, but he remembers vividly trying to speak to a classmate his first day of kindergarten. It was just a simple “Hello I’m Eddie,” and the kid just burst out laughing, aggressively pointing his finger at him, and suddenly everyone was staring at him. He rarely spoke to anyone after that. 

With that, communication was far more limited. His only other options were to write or sign. His mother wanted to have him put into a deaf school, but the closest one was far too expensive, so Eddie has been stuck in mainstream schools with a grumpy interpreter provided by the State.

It’s hard to make friends when you can’t even have a one on one conversation with them. It’s strange and deterring for a lot of people to talk through an interpreter. You lose the option of privacy and having an irritating adult man as a physical barrier between you and the rest of society creates a very lonely kid.

That’s why when he met Beverly, his world turned upside down.

She was the first hearing person he’d met his age that knew sign language. The only other kids he knew that knew it were either from his speech therapy class or his ASL class. There was finally someone he could talk to without any barriers.

The two of them clicked instantly. She came to their school in the middle of sixth grade and the only people to even give her the time of day were the horny eighth grade boys that sought out to take advantage of her new kid status. They were both outcasts and that brought the two of them together in the first place.

While Eddie sat out in front of their school waiting for his mom to come pick him up, she had walked up to him and asked for the time. But of course he didn’t hear her, which prompted her to tap his shoulder to get his attention when he failed to respond. She asked it again after getting him to look at her. Eddie simply shook his head and tapped on his ear, the universal sign for “I have no fucking clue what you just said”.

Usually people just walk away after that, and he didn’t expect anything to be different with this new girl. And he really didn’t expect her to sign to him.

‘ _ Do you have the time?’ _

It was seamless. Like it was her first language. Later she would tell him she became fluent after her mother had gone deaf. Her mom had died just a year before meeting her, which was why her and her father made the move to Maine. They needed a fresh start.

Eddie had never felt so happy before. They sat on that bench out in front of the school and talked for as long as they could until Sonia Kaspbrak finally showed up. But it was the first of many conversations between the two.

One day out of the blue, Beverly told Eddie that she’d like to interpret for him. 

He’d be lying if he said he’d never thought about it before. Beverly was his age and conversations with other kids at school wouldn’t seem so weird with her interpreting. No one would feel like they had to walk on eggshells. None of the ‘ _ no I can’t say that in front of him,’  _ everything felt so much more natural. Like instead of Beverly being a wall, she was a window. Sure the barrier was still there, but you could still see what was on the other side. So when they started seventh grade, he only used his interpreter for classes, and Bev interpreted him when in passing. 

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was burdening her with all of this, even though she was the one who offered. But she had none of that and constantly assured him that she was happy to do it. The feeling was still there at the back of him mind anyway.

His mother was surprisingly supportive of their friendship. It took her awhile to get used to. She hated that her  _ Eddie bear  _ was hanging around a  _ girl.  _ She wasn’t ready to watch her son grow up. But after observing how happy it made Eddie to have someone to talk to, she let it go. Even invited her over to dinner a few times.

Sonia Kaspbrak was extremely protective of her son. Was constantly worried about his health and well-being that she’d often forget that he wasn’t made of glass. Every time he so much as coughed or sneezed Sonia was sent into a panic. She wouldn’t allow her boy to get sick  _ again.  _ It was a devastating day when Sonia Kaspbrak had rushed her 18 month old son to the hospital. In tears as her baby was seizing in her arms. It was a heartbreaking couple hours later when they confirmed he had bacterial meningitis. And it was an agonizing seven months later when they confirmed that he was completely deaf. She had believed from that point on that she had failed as a mother. How could she have let this happen to him? She vowed from that day onward that nothing would ever hurt a hair on her child again.

This vow she made caused huge clouds in her judgement. She didn’t notice when she stopped being his mother and began being his protector. And the thought of him growing up scared her to death, because she wouldn’t be able to protect him forever. So when Beverly, a beautiful and tall girl who could speak his language entered their life, she was worried that this was the first step in him leaving her.

But she eventually came to her senses and decided that it was worth it to see her son smile again. 

What Sonia didn’t know was that her son had no interest in being anything more than friends with Beverly. And for a while, neither did Beverly herself. 

It was a very awkward exchange the day that Beverly had tried to kiss him.

He let her kiss him. He thought if he was ever going to fall in love with a girl, it would for sure be Beverly. But as soon as their lips touched, it felt like exactly what it was. Like kissing his best friend. There was nothing there for him. It felt so unnatural and uncomfortable that he wanted nothing more than for it to end. The only thought going through his mind was how he was going to tell Beverly that he didn’t feel the same. 

Despite his fears of hurting her, he managed to turn his head to the side and lean away. 

_ ‘I’m sorry’ _

Beverly showed a fake smile that quickly faded, a single tear making way down her cheek.  _ ‘It’s my fault. I don’t know what I was thinking. How could I expect you to feel the same?’ _

This broke Eddie’s heart. He couldn’t allow his best friend to feel this way simply because he was a coward and couldn’t be honest with her. It scared him shitless just toying with the idea of telling her the truth. He could just say that he valued her too much as a friend and he didn’t want anything to change, which wouldn’t be a lie. But somehow he knew she’d still be hurt. She’d still feel like she wasn’t good enough. She was perfect in every damn way and he’d marry her on the spot if only he were wired that way. 

_ ‘Beverly you are beautiful. You are perfect. You mean the world to me. Don’t ever think you are anything below that.’ _

He took a deep breath in. He took his left hand and held hers. And with his right hand he shakily signed.

_ ‘I’m gay.’ _

He didn’t know what he was expecting her reaction to be. The thought of telling anyone his secret was terrifying, but there was something about Bev that just made him feel safe. He was happy that when he looked up from their interlocked fingers to she that she was smiling. She quickly pulled him into a hug, allowing Eddie to fully let go of all of his fears and melt into her. He let out sobs of relief. Maybe he would be okay. 

She pulled away and broke the metaphorical silence.

_ ‘Thank you for telling me. I’m so proud of you.’ _

Typically when a friendship turns into an unrequited crush, that relationship suffers. But somehow this just made the two of them stronger. She finally knew the most authentic version of Eddie, and she loved that version a lot more than the Eddie she had a crush on. That version of Eddie didn’t really exist. Who wouldn’t fall for the only boy who had ever treated you with respect?

They were so lucky to have each other.

* * *

It was their second lunch at Derry Middle School and they’d actually been invited to sit with a group. Even at their old middle school they sat by themselves in the lounge area by the main entrance. Was it a loser thing to say that it was really exciting?

The two of them recognized Richie sitting with three other boys unknown to them. 

Richie was very intriguing to him. He was blind. How was this even supposed to work? He has no way of communicating to him without an interpreter. He shouldn’t want to befriend someone so unattainable, but yet he was strangely drawn to him. 

“Hey guys!” The boy on the far left greeted them. 

Eddie was told how terrible he was at reading lips, however he could pick up on short phrases or singular words when given context.

“Is that Beverly and Eddie?” Richie asked.

“Yes it’s is!” Beverly chimed in, seeing as they technically haven’t been introduced. “I’m Beverly and this is Eddie, obviously.”

The boy on the far left was the first to respond. “Hey I’m Ben! This is Bill and this is Stanley, and you already know Richie.”

Beverly fingerspelled their names for him.

_ ‘It’s nice to meet you.’ _

She translated.

Usually first interactions with people were a lot more awkward, but somehow they managed to fall into a rhythm and it felt so normal. Maybe it was because they were used to having a blind friend. Being deaf was just a different sense missing. They talked about their old middle school and how the two of them met and they talked about how they liked Derry. Sadly the reviews were not stellar. 

Eddie sat and observed the group, letting Beverly take the lead for the first day. If there was one thing being deaf taught Eddie it was to be very observant. The way both Ben and Bill fawned over Beverly didn’t go unnoticed, nor did Stan’s eye roll every time they stumbled over their words trying to impress her. Stan must be the observant type too. And he watched as Richie sat there and took in all the information like he was studying for an important exam. There was something uniquely charming about him. Even the crude jokes he slipped in about Stanley’s mother were somehow charming. He used words that Beverly didn’t even know how to sign, nor did she want to. 

Being Richie's friend was definitely going to be a challenge. But it didn’t really look like he had a choice.

Eddie would admit being the new kid was hard.

He would admit being the deaf kid was not easy.

He’d even admit to certain people that he was gay.

But the fact that he found the boy with the raven curls sticking out of his beanie cute? No. He would never admit that.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so a few notes:
> 
> \- I promise I wasn’t being lazy and taking so long, I just started my second semester at college and it’s been pretty hectic. I will hopefully be updating this more frequently.  
> \- Thank you so much for all the love from the first chapter. I promise I’ve read your comments I am just very bad and responding to them. I love nothing more than receiving comments. Even if it’s; “this is fucking terrible,” at least I know you read it, and that makes me feel good.  
> \- I have done a lot of research on this topic and have very personal connections to blindness and deafness and please understand that if I make factual errors, I apologize. My knowledge around blindness especially revolves around an entirely different disease that wouldn’t fit for someone in Richies position, so I had to come up with a different cause.  
> \- This was not beta read so I apologize for any mistakes  
> \- I know these first two chapters haven’t gotten into the plot yet but trust me I have big plans!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this and if you just read all of those notes I love you. Please leave me comments and feedback so I can thrive. Love you all!!


	3. Chapter 3

Richie didn’t like the concept of hope. Hope to him had always been an unreachable ideal. Hope had let him down so many times that he made the conscious decision to never get his hopes up.

But that didn’t stop hope from creeping its way back into his mind. 

When he finished his first round of chemo he had hope. He was just a little egocentric kid that believed he was invincible. This would be the worst of it. He was sure of it. When he was called in to his oncologists office after his round of scans and tests, he was expecting good news. He was expecting him to tell him that the cancer had shrunk and that he’d be able to see again. 

Looking back Richie doesn’t understand how he convinced himself this was the case. He could see better than anyone how his vision was deteriorating. He could tell that things weren’t improving, but he would make the excuse to himself that it was a side effect of the chemotherapy. His vision would get better, he just needed a little time.

Dr. James asking to speak to his parents privately was the first sign that something was not right. Okay, maybe it wasn’t getting better. Maybe there wasn’t any improvement. But surely they could just try again. Surely.

He never anticipated them telling him it had spread. That the chemotherapy wasn’t working. That the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen was happening to him. 

So where do we go from here? He would ask himself. More treatment? Different treatment? This was reversible right? Of course the damage would be reversible. It had to be. It just had to.

But of course that last glimmer of hope died when they told him they’d need to remove the left eye. 

The cancer has spread to his retina and tumors were putting pressure on the optic nerve. They couldn’t risk letting it spread to the brain. Richie of course didn’t hear any of this as he was in complete shock and his body had completely shut down. This was actually happening. The worst case scenario was happening.

Yet it really wasn’t the worst case scenario. All the bad news was overshadowing the slightly good news that the tumors in his right eye hadn’t shown any progression, which didn’t seem like a good thing. But at least he’d get to keep the eye and possibly get better. There was still hope for him. 

But that was the day Richie let go of hope.

That was a year and a half ago. 

In between now and then he’d been in and out of the doctors office constantly. Test after test after test and this results were the same.

No change.

No change.

No change.

He was ready for Dr. James to give him the same speech he had done three times before. He hated that he was stuck in a state of limbo. He wasn’t getting better, or getting worse. He was stuck. He was so ready for the same thing that he wasn’t even listening.

But the arm on his shoulder pulled him out of his trance. _What did he say?_

“I’m sorry can you repeat that?”

“You qualify for an experimental drug trial that has shown progress in cases such as your own.”

Richie just sat there unable to move. It was the first time he’d gotten any news that had substance since his eye surgery. And this time it was good news. He couldn’t find it in him to react. Afraid that if he acknowledged it or showed any kind of emotion that he would wake up from the dream.

“You’ll have to undergo another course of chemotherapy, but I think this might be your best shot.”

And there it was.

He wanted to stop it from happening but he just couldn’t.

He had hope again.

* * *

It’s been seven months since his last chemo session. This was going to be his third time going through it, so he knew the drill. He’d show up for his appointment, sit down in the chair along with other cancer patients, let them pump the drugs into his system, and sit in silence for the next one to two hours.

During his first course, his mother and father were there for every single session. There holding his hand throughout the process. But by the time it came to his second, the two of them tried their best to alternate after the two of them had to pick up second jobs to pay for all of their medical expenses. So there were a few sessions he spent by himself.

Richie has a lot of reasons to hate chemo. The hair loss, the sickness, the weakness. Those were all terrible side effects. But they were all bearable. However what was unbearable was the silence. There was this stupid rule that they were supposed to stay quiet during their sessions out of respect for the others around them. All you could hear was the buzzing of the machines pushing the toxins into your body. This was Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier. How was he supposed to stay quiet for two hours with nothing to do? It was surprisingly often that a nurse would offer him a magazine. He even accepted it one time to spare her a little bit of dignity.

Spending sessions by himself made him feel so disconnected from reality. He couldn’t speak or move and there was no one there to keep him grounded. He could sense the guilt weighing on his parents, they were doing everything they could but their own realities got in the way. 

Ben had come to see him one day after one of his sessions that second time around. Richie always tried to put up an unbothered front whenever the group would discuss his treatment. “Chicks dig a sob story” he’d say regularly. But after one particularly bad session that ended in him having a panic attack, he opened up to Ben. 

Ben had become a safe space for Richie. He was a very good listener and was the least judgmental person he’d ever met. In situations like these where he couldn’t talk to his parents, he’d go to Ben.

He told Ben how the silence made him feel. There was nothing there to distract him from the pain and the sickness. There was nothing there to reassure him that he was still alive. Only the constant buzzing and clacking of the machines ringing in his ear. Ben usually had good advice for anything and everything. He was like Stan in the sense that he was wise beyond his years, but unlike Stan he maintained the naivety and innocence of a child. 

But Ben couldn’t seem to come up with the right thing to say. All four of them had wanted to accompany him when his parents wouldn’t be there, but his sessions typically took place during the school day, and none of their parents would approve of it. Mike, although homeschooled, could barely get away from the farm for anything that wasn’t delivery related. He was only able to walk Richie home from school because the school was on his route. Ben couldn’t come up with a solution to his loneliness. All he could offer Richie was a simple “I’m sorry”.

So Richie was surprised when Ben had shown up at his house after his next session. 

“I think I have a solution”.

Richie was confused. Ben rarely ever came by to his house due to distance. If they were to ever hang out they’d usually meet somewhere in between. “What are you talking about Haystack?”

“I think I found something to fill the silence. Hold out your hand.”

Richie was still confused, but humored Ben by holding out his hand. _Please don’t let it be anything gross._ His prayers were answered when the item placed in his hands was a hard rectangular object. He felt a cord stick out of the side as well as a detached piece hanging from the tips of his fingers and weighing them down.

“Is this - “

“It’s my Walkman. I only have New Kids on the Block cassettes but I think this might help.”

Richie didn’t know what to say. This was too much. “Ben I can’t take this from you.” This was his thing. This was Ben’s safe place. No matter how many jokes they would crack about his taste in music, this was Ben’s one route of escape from reality. This wasn’t meant to be Richie's tether.

“You can and you will Richie. You need this more than I do. I needed this back when I was alone and had no friends,” Ben sighed. “But I have you and Bill and Stan and Mike… I’m not alone anymore.” Ben let out a slight chuckle, as if to break the tension. “So since none of us can be there for you, you can get to know my friends Joey, Jonathan, Danny, Donnie, and Jordan”.

Richie just laughs. Richie Tozier is left speechless, which is a rarity. “Thank you Ben.” Is all he manages to get out. No snarky comment about the music. No joke about his mother. Just that. Just gratitude. 

“No problem man, see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah”.

When Richie closes the door, he lets himself breakdown. Not out of sadness, but out of pure and utter joy. He’s sobbing and clutching the Walkman to his chest. It’s been a very long time since he’d felt this way. He’d never expect his friends to make a sacrifice for him. He never even expected them to stay. This made all of his worries about himself being a burden vanish just for that one second. They truly cared about him. And Richie finally started to truly understand that.

And somehow this experience didn’t make informing the rest of the losers that he’d be going through it again any easier. The last time he did it they all were so upset. They had been telling Richie for weeks that good news was coming. That losing his eye was the worst of it. They all felt so upset that they’d gotten Richie’s hopes up. He wouldn’t tell them that he didn’t have any hope to begin with.

But now hope was back. And this was good news, despite it coming with many downsides.

At lunch that day he asks everyone to meet at the clubhouse after school. Everyone knew what this meant, except for Eddie and Beverly. Richie wouldn’t invite them to the clubhouse without telling them why unless it was about his cancer. Richie would have told them at lunch, but the clubhouse was just another safe space for them. Sometimes when down below ground, he felt like the cancer couldn’t get him. Like for a moment in time, when he was hidden away from society and only surrounded by the people he loves, he was safe from all harm. The clubhouse kept them safe from Bowers, and from their parents, and in a way his cancer. He could be normal and free. So saying things out loud about his cancer in his safe place didn’t seem so scary. Because it couldn’t get him.

Mike and Richie made the trek together after school. Mike was usually talkative when they made their trips together, but this time was different. Richie knee why. He knew that all Mike could think about was what Richie had to tell them. He knew he was only biting his tongue because he knew if he opened his mouth all he’d be able to do is ask what was wrong. 

Richie decided not to invite Eddie and Beverly. They had only known them for a week at this point. It was far too soon to drop a bomb on them like this. He figures he can just wait it out. 

The rest of the group is already there by the time Mike and Richie arrive. He hoped he’d have a little more time to prepare for what he was going to tell them. He knew that this was good news, he just hoped that they too would see it that way. Richie has a chance of getting better. But they’d all have to see him go through everything again, but kicked up a notch. The way the doctor described it to him was that the additional treatment on top of the chemotherapy would make him really weak, much weaker than the chemo did. He also would have to spend a lot more time in the hospital. Each session of the drug trial would take place after his chemotherapy, and he’d need to be monitored for 24 hours after each injection. And these would be injections that went directly into his eye. There was a huge risk that just the injection itself would blind him.

But he decided to spare the details for now, and just tell them what they’ve been waiting to hear.

“I’m going to get straight to the reason I brought you guys here.” He took in a deep breath. “I qualify for a new drug trial that supposedly might give me a shot. I have to go through another course of chemotherapy alongside the trial but they say it’s the best option for me right now.”

The group all simultaneously let out an audible sigh. 

“I th-thought you were gonna t-tell us it was w-worse”. Bill chuckled. 

“This is great news Richie.” Stan followed.

“Thanks guys, but it’s going to be a lot rougher than before. I’ll probably be missing a lot more school, but on the bright side, you guys can come visit me at the hospital after school if you wanted. Not to be all mushy but I kind of need you guys”.

“Of course we’ll be there”. Ben said, resting his hand on Richies shoulder , causing him to flinch at the touch. Still nobody but Stan knew what had happened to him, so he didn’t tell Ben to move his hand. But Ben must’ve noticed his reaction which is why he moved his hand away. “You can always tell us how you’re feeling. You don’t have to pretend to be strong around us alright?” It was like he read his mind. Ben knew there was something off with him. Richie could feel it in his words that Ben knew. He just didn’t know what.

“We’ve got you Richie.” Stan said knowingly. 

He trusted the sentiment. He really truly did. And one day he hoped he’d have the confidence to be honest with them. With all of them. But for now, he had their trust to hold on to. 

And he had hope. And for the first time in a long time. He was okay with that.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry we still haven’t gotten into much Reddie yet but I assure you it’s coming. There’s a lot of backstory to cover and this will be a long and drawn out slow burn. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please leave a comment or kudos if you did! I’d love to hear what you think of this and any predictions you have.


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